products - joint injection system
Musculoskeletal injuries have an enormous impact on society, affecting one out of every seven Americans. In 2001, nearly 70 million, or one in three adults, reported having arthritis or chronic joint symptoms1. To address the growing needs of patients who complain of joint pain and decreased function, physicians utilize essential tools to diagnose and treat these conditions. Specifically, joint aspiration, synovial fluid analysis and local joint injections of corticosteroids, anesthetic agents and viscosupplementation products (hyaluronic acid) are heavily relied upon to provide disease-specific treatment. The local injection of therapeutic agents can lead to rapid decreases in pain and inflammation without many of the side effects associated with systemic medications such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Successfully entering the intra-articular space depends upon a variety of contributing factors, such as patient anatomy, skill of the physician and the patient's overall tolerance to the procedure itself. In addition to the therapeutic dose potentially not being administered to the correct location, an increased amount of pain during and after a procedure has been linked to inaccurately placed joint injections2.
The current standard methodology for intra-articular injections is based on manual palpation and anatomical landmarks. In light of this, there has been increased consideration within the medical community on the assessment of physician accuracy when performing these procedures.
Our focus is to provide an injection system that healthcare practitioners could use to increase the accuracy of intra-articular joint injections. We believe that improved accuracy would result in improved clinical outcomes. In a study involving intra-articular injections of corticosteroids into the shoulder, significantly greater improvements in both function and pain were observed in patients who had received sonographic guided injections. It has also been reported that an inaccurate injection might not only decrease the efficacy of the injected agent, but it might also contribute to the incidence of local tissue damage, such as atrophy of soft tissue and fat. We expect our development efforts to lead to the first cost effective and simple-to-use intra-articular joint injection system.
Caution: This product is not for sale and has not yet been approved for investigational use in any jurisdiction. This material is provided for general information purposes.
1 Prevalence of Self-Reported Arthritis or Chronic Joint Symptoms Among Adults---United States, 2001. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. 2002;51(42):948-50. [http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5142a2.htm]
2 Jones A, Regan M, Ledingham J, Pattrick M, Manhire A, Doherty M. Importance of Placement of Intra-Articular Steroid Injections. British Medical Journal. 1993;307:1329-1330.